


And The Body Is Only a Shell

by TallysGreatestFan



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: F/M, Miscommunication, Sexual Tension, Unrequited Love, showering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-18 00:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21502537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TallysGreatestFan/pseuds/TallysGreatestFan
Summary: Shortly after her transformation, Delenn is overwhelmed by the task to clean her new hair. Hesitantly, she asks Lennier for help. Neither of them really expected the mess of sexual tension, shame and miscommunication that follows.
Relationships: Delenn/Lennier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	And The Body Is Only a Shell

,,Lennier, could you… maybe assist me in… something?“

It was evening, and normally the time where they would have their work finished and would spent their free time, alone or together. But since Delenns change, everything had become more complicated, and because he knew how much she struggled with everybody else questioning her, he understood how important his service – his obedience – was for her right now.

,,Of course.”, he went in direction of her voice. How insecure and scared she had sounded, so unlike the mighty Satai and wise woman she was – but then, after how much her body changed and how both the humans and her people reacted to it, he was awestruck at how well she handled it, he couldn’t imagine doing it so well if it was his body that had changed.

He stood in front of the bathroom, now, and as he still wondered if he should go inside, the door opened and Delenn emerged. She wore only her trousers, and had one hand in her hair – how this human-head-fur was called – as if she didn’t know what to do with it. Her desperate expression made him wish the universe would finally be kind to her – she was so wise and brave and kind, she didn’t deserve all of this.

,,Susan showed me how to treat it, and I tried, but somehow… it is still so new for me, and so difficult, and alone I simply don’t manage to reach all of it, and… I know it is much to ask, but could you help me to wash my hair?”

Something about seeing her bare upper body made him feel strange, thereby it should have been nothing special. The men and women of his cloister had worked topless often when the sun burned so hot that clothes would feel unbearable, he knew how that looked like. But still he perceived the form of her collar bone and the way the dark locks of her hair fell over her shoulders and stopped just over the swell of her small, gorgeous breasts, her lean stomach – only beige skin anymore, no blue swirls like at his – and the curve of her hips in far too many details, as if reality had become more detailed to pay deference to his leader. His heart fluttered, his throat seemed suddenly too tight to breath and his knees felt weak, as if the honor of serving her was suddenly too much for his body to handle. A twinge of self-hate emerged in him. How could he be so disrespectful, staring at her new form like that? And so he looked away.

She felt sorry for having to ask him, then, as shock flashed over his face and his eyes fled her sight. She had made her own body to a symbol of her vision, had sacrificed her own flesh to create peace, but right now she didn’t felt like something greater than just her own species petty xenophobia. She simply felt like what all this hateful humans and Minbari saw in her – a monster, a perversity. And seeing in Lenniers eyes that she would never be truly part of them again hurt, hurt so much that it felt as if her heart would burn in her chest, and she had to breath between clenched teeth to banish the pain.

It didn’t seemed to be a part of her own body she was touching, the silky, alien hair in her hand, just someone else’s body. This wasn’t Delenn, only her thoughts and emotions were. But she was stuck in this body, and Delenns own didn’t exist anymore. She didn’t wants her poor friend to witness this abnormality in all its details, but she couldn’t go to the council meeting tomorrow with her hair greasy. This was more important than her or his uncomfortableness.

,,Of course I can.”, he said shyly. Warmth spread through her chest, and she managed to smile at him.

He followed her in the bathroom, and looked away embarrassed as she put down her trousers, too, and stepped into the shower. He heard water crackle down, like heavy rain.

,,Lennier, come inside.”, her voice had its usual commanding quality back, but some when at the last word, it broke. The glass of the shower was opaque, but he could still see the silhouette of her, and with shock he realized that she was naked. And if he would step inside, there would be no glass hiding her anymore… He had seen her like this before, after the transformation, but still the thought made his heart flutter nervously.

,,You better undress, if you don’t want to have your robe soaked.”, she added, helpfully.

He drew one deep breath. He was all too aware how ugly he was, with his short, skinny body, his thin arms and his asymmetrical pale blue ren’helasae, and he wanted to spare Delenn from that image.

,,I won’t look.”, she added, and he breathed in deeply again, and put his robe down. Being naked with another person in the room felt so strange, no barrier, no cover between him and the world. He had to fight down the urge to cover himself as he opened the shower door and stepped under the spurt. Warm water pelted down on his skin. It was a relaxing sensation, and so strange and intense that he couldn’t help but relish it and raise his arms to let the water drop on his palms. Surprised, he closed his eyes as streams of water hit his face. His tension left a bit, as if the warm water would wash it away. He felt himself smile.

Her cramped muscles untied under the warm streams, and feeling water pelt down on every inch of her body made it seem more real, truly hers, because she wouldn’t be able to feel what it felt if it wasn’t hers, would she?

She grabbed the shampoo bottle, then turned and looked at Lennier. His eyes were closed, his lips curved to a little smile as water run down in a dozen little streams over his crest and face, over pale white and sky blue skin. Strange, to see him without his robe. The silver collar and the fabric of it seemed like a natural part of how he looked like.

,,It feels good, doesn’t it?”

,,Yes.”, how cute his innocent delight over the shower was. She almost forgot all the difficulties meant to come.

,,What do I do, now?”, he asked after a while.

,,Do you see this bottle here?”, she handed it to him, ,,Open that and pour a bit of it in your palm”

“It feels strange.”, she heard him mumble and couldn’t help but laugh at his surprise, and he quickly said: ,,I’m sorry”

,,No need to be sorry”

Automatically, she stroke over his arm reasuringly. It felt so different now, the firmness of his shoulder bones under smooth skin, the wetness of the shower, the soft and at the same time firm muscles. A muscle in his jaw twitched. She pulled back, suddenly all too aware that they were both naked and standing in an quite small space.

,,Now you spread the liquid over my hair, and then massage it in. Just like ruffling a goks fur.”, she stepped out of the stream as good as this was possible. Soon, she felt Lenniers hands on her scalp, distributing the shampoo in circular motions. It felt calming. She closed her eyes. Then he hesitantly massaged it in, and being touched by another person, after all this, despite her transformation, feeling his presence behind her, felt so good that she almost cried.

His heart pounded like mad. Her hair felt silken but still strangely firm, heavy with water. It had felt so different the one time he had touched it before as it was dry. As he pushed his fingers in, it parted – it was an utterly strange sensation, but a good one, he thought. The liquid, shampoo, was slimy under his palms, but as he massaged trough the hair, feeling the skin underneath, it became foam.

Delenn said that was the sign that it absorbed the dirt from the hair. What an odd liquid.

Soon he was finished with the area above what was left of her bone crest, and she ordered him to massage it into the hair directly underneath it too. Somewhen, his fingertips grazed her crest, and as she didn’t complained, he ran his fingers up to it curiously, not really sure what had made him so bold.

The lower area of the ridges was soft as skin, but gradually hardened in the same warm, hard, slightly abrasive surface his own crest possessed too. Smoother, maybe, but that was the carving of hers, no change since the transformation. It felt as gorgeous as it looked, the alien sensation of the smooth places and the hair only enhancing it. And then, as he followed the ridges with his fingers up to where the hair started, she signed low.

Lenniers heart made a painfully heavy beat, and something else strange started in his body, but the sensation was so odd and sudden that he didn’t immediately realized what it was.

His fingers froze.

,,Hmmm, that is wonderful. You can continue.”, Delenn hummed, and moved her torso a bit, and he couldn’t help but notice how gorgeous the angular edges of her shoulders and the form of her back were. He had the sudden urge to touch it, but of course he didn’t.

Instead he continued to firmly massage her crest, from her sleeves to the tip.

The strange sensation settled in a tingling urge between his thighs. He breathed in deeply, focused on the rest of his body. He knew that sensation, if not that often, most memorable from his passing-to-youth ritual, but he definitely knew it, and he was also vaguely aware that it took place in how two people might show their love, and that it was deeply private. This couldn’t happen. How embarrassing and demanding this would have been for Delenn, he couldn’t be this horrible to her.

But she seemed to haven’t noticed yet, standing with her back towards him, and so he gathered his courage and looked down. Good, there was indeed nothing to see yet; the most secret part of him was still hidden inside his body as it should be.

For a moment she felt Lennier hesitate, stop the wonderful touch, and the by now well-known self-disgust crept up in her again. Then he continued washing, but somehow she still couldn’t cherish it as much as before.

“I am finished.”, he said with slightly quivering voice. Was it rather cute or sad that this still made him so nervous?

“What do we do now?”, he watched her as attentive as an young acolyte learning an new ritual. In some way he was, actually.

“When I understood Susan right, this is not really necessary, but now we can rub these lotions on our skin so that the water cleans us better – that is how humans clean themselves, you see?”

“The rose bottle over there?”

“Smell on it.”, she encouraged him.

“It smells like… some sort of flower. I like it.”

She looked to him, how he hold the bottle. From this angle, the way the lithe muscles of his arms bulged oh so lightly, his flat stomach and the angular forms of his hipbone looked like painted, intriguing, and something awoke in her. She wanted to know how his pale white and blue skin felt like and at the same time was afraid to touch him, to reassure herself that this loyal young man was really doing this with her.

“Help me to apply it. Just like our cleaning paste every morning”

She put out the stream. She heart Lennier move through the shallow water, then his hands touched her shoulders, hesitantly first. He spread the shower foam in wide circles. It was warm and smooth under his hands.

It was so wonderful and unexpected to be touched again that the skin underneath his palms and fingers started to feel warm, and warmth spread through the rest of her body again. A light touch over her spine, then his tentative stroke only ten centimeters over her butt, and the warmth became electric shivers that ran over her flank, over her stomach, and finally ended in her loins. She noticed how her breathing got faster.

She could easily imagine a lover standing behind her, Jeff maybe (but he was gone), caressing her as overtune for making love. Oh, to ever feel a lovers touch again…. The sharp pain contrasted with the pleasure from Lenniers touch.

“Your front too?”, he asked as he stopped.

“Yes.”, she said as if in trance.

His slender, sensitive hands massaged over her flank, she felt how he came closer to reach all of her. She could almost feel his body against her back. She had to control herself not to shiver. Then his hands made their way over her stomach, and her breath caught. She felt herself tense despite herself.

“ Did I do something wrong? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, very… very much so.”, her voice sounded slightly breathy, blurry at the edges. Lenniers fingers moved again, and a shiver ran straight through her loins. Suddenly knowing that Lennier was naked and standing so close behind her made her desperately wet.

Actually he wasn’t really her type, but there was beauty in his unique, subtle forms, and today…

He massaged the shower foam in closer to her chest now, deliberately watching out to not come to close to her breasts, and then laid one hand on her collarbone to do it there too. She had to pull herself together to not pant and gasp. Her breasts tingled with longing.

And as if this was an instinct, she grabbed his hand and slowly laid it on her breast. Already just feeling his palm against her nipple sent a shiver of lust trough her loins. She heard Lennier gasp softly, and that brought her out a bit and made her wonder if this was appropriate, but then, despite being an quite sensitive place to be touched at during love, breasts were just a normal part of the chest, right, she had been swimming or walking around shirtless so often as she was still fully Minbari. So that was completely okay.

Finally, he started moving his fingers quite hesitantly, and then faster, and the touch echoed directly between her thighs, let her loins throb, ache. She couldn’t help but convulse her face in a silent grimace of pleasure and was glad that Lennier behind her couldn’t see it.

This was it. Despite all his trials, breathing in slowly and concentrating on the rest of his body, he felt his blood flood between his legs with a violence that made him gasp. It felt actually quite good, but showing such an absolutely demanding and inappropriate reaction in front of Delenn… A fling of self-hate mingled with the pleasure.

He felt her slender but strong fingers on top of his, the softness of her breast underneath it. It was resilient but still firm, strange but in a good way. Her nipples were so soft under his touch. He tried not to think at how he had read in an erotic scene somewhere once that this was a sign of a womans arousal. He could feel his sex growing harder, sliding out of him.

Hopefully Delenn wouldn’t turn. His face felt incredibly hot and must have been quite red.

As he finally gathered his courage to move his hands, massage the shower foam over her body – her breasts felt so, so good – he heard her breathing change slightly, subtly, flatter, almost choked. He didn’t know why but it sounded wonderful, and he felt as if his own breath got stuck somewhere in his chest. His loins throbbed, almost painfully so, but in a way so pleasurable he had rarely felt.

Finally he was finished, and waited, feared, for Delenns next command. She should never see how much her touch had affected him. In truth, he himself had not expected it, but here he was, his sex completely out, aching in pleasure and for something else he didn’t even really knew what it was, or why.

“Good.”, there was a chuckle in her voice, and something mischievous that made his whole body tense in anticipation, but was he mistaken or did she still sounded slightly breathless?, ,,Now you.”

Before she could turn and see him, he turned his back to her. It was slightly difficult in the small shower, but he managed. He stepped out of the stream.

Then Delenn laid her hands on his shoulders. He shivered. Couldn’t help it. The shower foam was cool, cool and smooth, and the sensation of her distributing it all over his back…

A low hum escaped him, and he was so transfixed in the sensations that he needed some moments to realize that he had done it and that Delenn must have heard it. His heartbeat was so painfully heavy that he could feel it in his throat.

But he just heard her breath in deeply, pleasurably – or was he mistaken? – and her skilled fingers ran over his flanks, down his waist, hips. It was as if even the slightest touch of her ignited also an equal sensation between his legs. It was so much touch, so intense, more than he had ever thought could be pleasurable. There was nothing beside the warm water prickeling down on his chest and Delenn anymore. So it took him some time to notice her next command.

How the subtle muscles in Lenniers slender back shifted, the form of his spine and the blue line of speckles down it, gorgeously glowing against pale white skin – how long had it been since she had seen that? Could she really have forgotten how beautiful it was? Only as Lennier had turned his back towards her she had realized that she had longed to see it. But they had to finish showering, and so she gently said: “Now turn around.”

Lenniers shoulders moved in some body language she failed to read from behind. He stayed as he was.

“Turn around, so that I can lotion you there too.”, she asked, and as he hesitated added: ,,Or does this make you uncomfortable?”

Finally he turned. His shoulders were pulled up defensively, his eyes averted her gaze.

“No, but…I…I’m…”, he broke off.

Briefly, her gaze flinched over his body, over his lean chest, a bit to lean for her taste, but only a bit, and the blue over his sternum and down his flat stomach – and out of the corner of her eye she realized something.

With a shock of lust and hesitantly nervousness, she noticed that Lennier had a quite obvious erection; what must be his full length everted and hard.

He was not as large as some of the men she had been with, but his sex was indeed quite pleasantly formed, and a part of her, she realized, wanted to reach out and touch it.

She gulped.

Her new body was really close enough to a Minbari, beautiful enough, to elicit this kind of reaction from him. From Lennier, the most Minbari person she knew. “I am not an disgusting abomination.”, she thought, and so much luck that she almost had to cry surged up in her. She had hair on her head under the bone crest and between her thighs where blue should be, the pale blue on her stomach and at the top of her head was gone, as was most of her crest – and still the sight of her had sparked desire in him.

“I… I am so sorry”, blubbered Lennier, ,,this is so demanding and gross towards you, I hate my body for it, it should not have happened… I should go.”

“There is nothing demanding about you. Things like this happen.”, happen to her, still, after her transformation, she still was so overwhelmed with luck about that.

She didn’t really know what to say and even lesser what to do, but she knew that she didn’t wanted it to stop.

She was so aroused that it hurt, and her body longed for him, the mechanisms of two people being this close. A part of her wanted to press him against the wall, touch him and listen to the sounds he would make.

Would he hum and breathe hard like Accolon, sign like Cassuan or perhaps growl softly like Neroon had? No, knowing him, he would not growl. Another wave of lust at the very plastic picture.

But truth was, she hadn’t had sex since almost six years by now, and there was such a huge inhibition. It shouldn’t happen again like this, but in the right ritual and elevated enough.

And Lennier couldn’t possibly truly want her, this was just an automatic reaction of his body.

“We can just… wash of the lotion each for ourselves? If that’s okay for your?”

He continued looking down, seemingly thinking. Then he mumbled: ,,It is.”

But she was not really sure if he just obeyed because of her position.

Why did Delenn keep him there? He should have left this strange alien facility already a minute before, even before he had blemished her with the knowledge that her form… did what to him? He was honestly not sure, the monasteries education had never covered cases like this and their meaning. Instead he stood there and wasn’t sure what to do. Deliberately he looked away from her.

The stream of water was quite small for both of them, and he heard that Delenn was already using it, so he had to squint where she stood least accidentally touching her. Even just the thought of touching her, her smooth, soft skin against his, sent a shudder of hotness trough his loins. His cheeks reddened; he was very sure that one could have seen his dirty thoughts in his expression and the reactions of his body.

He had tried only to squint, but that was already enough. The picture had burned itself into his eyes.

Delenn standing under the stream with her eyes closed, water running down her sharp, ethereal features, the dark hair so different to when it was dry, a smooth, shimmering flood over the back of her head and her shoulders and the sharp, narrow form of her collar bone.

And then the peak of her breasts, small and softly rounded off on the underside. The water trailed down on them, over her enlarged nipples. Her breasts were so incredibly gorgeous, perfect, and his fingers tingled with the knowledge that he had actually touched them. He could still feel it all. Another wave of lust trough him, and he couldn’t help but to let escape a little sign.

And then she moved her hands, her experienced, slender, beautiful hands, over her breasts to wash them… He felt as if he wasn’t able to breath anymore.

A part of him wanted to turn and look at her again, but even like this, he had seen her in more details than he should have. How the water streamed down her stomach, strangely alien looking without the blue pattern, down the curve of her hips and over her wiry legs. The form of her hipbones showing trough the skin, creating a beautiful pattern. And then the soaked triangle of hair between her legs – his cheeks turned hot even just as the memory flashed in front of his minds eye – dark brown like the one on her head, but more crinkly than it. He couldn’t help but wonder how it felt like.

Could it be that – no, that wouldn’t happen, silly young acolyte, but…- could it be that she had not sent him away because – hot throbbing in his sex, he felt himself breathing faster – she planned to use his service in the way some of the male servants in his books had served their mistresses? Already he saw her pulling him to her, cover his lips in an possessive kiss, and he would knead her breasts with one hand and drop the other down to the curls over her womanhood, hiding her centre of pleasure, until he slipped deeper, and she would make these wonderful sounds again she had made as he touched her breasts, only louder. And he would be so close to her that there was skin on skin, and she could touch him too, like she had touched his back, only now his chest and hip, and, and…

The painfully intense throb brought him back to reality, more intense than he had ever felt.

She couldn’t help but peek at Lennier; she told herself it was just the will to check if he had a good mutual experience. He was standing half-turned to her, so that the forms of his hips looked especially pleasant. And he had such nice legs, well-muscled with the training the Third Fane of Chu’Domo let their acolytes undergo.

His long-fingered hands were stroking in slow, self-forgotten patterns over the slight curve of his chest. The shower rained down on his face, on his closed eyes and slightly parted lips. He looked so inviting already like this, but his arousal… She had tried to look above it, but it was simply so hard not to see. And then Lennier seemed to have an particular good thought, because his chest rose and fell in faster breathes, and his touches against his own skin looked more desperate. His sex twitched.

A shot of heat trough her centre. She moaned, and only after she had done the sounds she realized that she should have suppressed it. Lenniers visil’rahan twitched again, even if Lenniers eyes flew wide open, frightened.

This time, she could even see a drop of his seeds well out of him and being quickly washed away.

 _Oh_. This was too much. Hardly even caring anymore that this was inappropriate here, Delenn was about to simply grab between her legs and jerk off here and now. She didn’t knew why she didn’t. Instead she sank against the wall, breathing hard as lust washed in waves trough her, wanting, needing something, anything.

She opened her eyes again and saw Lennier wash the rest off his body carefully, with these pretty slender hands, and a flash of how easy it would be to reach out for him and explore this supple body with her hands and mouth filled her mind. She would follow the form of these tendons on his lean neck, lick the water from the warm, smooth skin, and hear him gasp, and then trace the patterns of blue on his chest and stomach and feel the muscles underneath tense. Would it pleasure him just as much as Accolon back then when she teased his nipples?

And she would take his hands and lay them to where she wanted them, on her breasts, her flank, her ass, and then finally in between her thighs – another impulse to touch herself there, so intense was her arousal, but she ignored it again.

Finally, as there was a quirk of desperation in his innocent gaze, she would trace her fingers lightly all over the blue splashes surrounding his visil’rahan, over his pubic bone, on the inside of his thighs, and see it twitch again. Would he beg? (She felt herself tighten as she imagined that he did) So she took his sex and touched it hard and fast, and relished the feeling of him in her hands and the expressions and sounds he made.

Some when, she came back to reality. She was finished washing off the lotion and so was Lennier. She almost felt ashamed about her fantasies.

She turned off the shower, wrung her hair out, and then stepped out.

“It’s could.”, she heard Lennier mumble, and even now, she had to smile about his innocence.

It seemed like this would be another shower she wouldn’t forgot this fast, but she was still not sure if in the good or the bad way.

“What now?”, he asked. Surely standing there, suddenly feeling cold and miserable, was not the end of this alien ritual.

“Now we towel the water away.”, she said, took an towel, and rubbed it over Lenniers back. The rough fabric of it against his now more sensitive skin, he actually shivered. Wordlessly, Delenn handed the towel to him and started to dry herself with another one.

He wanted to say that he had quite liked the sensation, but he didn’t know how without it being inappropriate – even more inappropriate than the reactions of his body. And so he simply dried himself up.

“Again, I am so sorry for how my body reacted. That was inappropriate and pressuring.”

Delenn seemed to have to think a while, until she came up with an answer.

“It was… it wasn’t pressuring. You did it involuntarily, and you apologized immediately. I didn’t feel pressuring.”, she left her mouth slightly open as if she wanted to say something else, but then only closed it.

“I ruined the experience.”

She smiled: ,,You didn’t. In fact… I liked it.”

“I liked it too.”, he said so quietly that she probably didn’t even heard it. He added: “It was a… interesting experience.”

He put on his clothes again, hide these embarrassing details about his body. She was also almost finished with her robe. Would that be the last time he saw her naked, touched her like this? He looked to her, and watched how the last bit of bare skin vanished under purple fabric.

**Author's Note:**

> An story I had in my head for quite some time, but only managed to finish this summer. This also turned out a lot longer than I thought


End file.
